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Need some help here with my TM700. I've looked around and can't really find this specific problem I am having.

I had some AVCHD files that I couldn't figure out how to delete. I recorded them when I first got this camera in 2010. I have since been recording solely in 60P, so I found out that I had to go back to the AVCHD mode in order to view those files to delete them. So I chose delete, and then "All scenes" instead of "select". I then pressed delete, it asked for a confirmation, and I said yes. So it said, "Deleting" and stayed like that for maybe 10 minutes. It was a few files, but not an enormous amount. I tried to click "cancel" but it wouldn't work, the whole thing was frozen. My only option was to remove the battery. I did that and upon booting it back up, it said, "Thumbnail data error detected." And then it said, "Repairing thumbnail data." However, that screen also hangs for eternity.

Do I know have a worthless $750 piece of plastic?

Thanks to any that could provide some help.

By the way, I am able to access the camera on the computer if I plug in the USB quick enough before that error appears. I thought about trying to format the card manually, but I have no clue how to do that and thought I might cause even more damage.

Put the SD card in your computer and get the files off it you want. Reformat the card with the computer. Put the card in the camera and reformat the card again. The computer reformat cleans it. The second creates the files structure the camera needs.

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't have a card reader but I'll do my best. However, I think it might be an internal memory problem and not the SD card because when I remove the card altogether, it still gives me the same error?

I'm getting the following error: "Error Occurred. Please turn unit off, then turn it on again." I've done that numerous times to no avail. The zoom doesn't work, and basically the rest of the camera doesn't work either, outside of the main menu. I've formatted the card in the camera, and I'm going to try to do it in the computer now to see if that helps. My settings are setup to use the SD card for both video and pics. Outside of that, it sounds like the auto screen opening and closing isn't opening all the way when I turn the camera on. It seems to take it a second or two before it fully opens up, resulting in a black screen till it does open up. Any ideas?

I have an HDC-SDT750 that had the same problem.. "Error Occurred. Please turn unit off, then turn it on again" Camera wouldn't focus etc... I was ready to give up (I had already pick a out a new camcorder to purchase $1900) and stumbled on this site.. http://www.camerahacker.com/Forums/D...f_and_on_again..

Not believing for a second the solution would work, but I had nothing to lose.. I tried it and shockingly it worked. I hit the bottom of the camera three or four times and the error message went away the picture came in focus.. I'm just passing on the fix as I was very thankful to the contributor for providing the solution.

seems like eternity since I last visited here... but I hope someone still reads this thread from time to time.

It's been almost 5 years since Panasonic came out with HDC-TM700 and other members of this cam family. And years later, I still have issues with editing native files.

Since I've been a bit out of the loop, is there anyone here that would like to share their opinions? Here's what I'm looking for:
- NLE tool capable of using raw MTS files from these cams (1080/60p/AVCHD)
- editing without recoding to the intermediary files
- having any kind of hardware acceleration
- having the ability to export to 1080/60p with as little loss of quality as possible
- as low price as possible not a pro ... I just want "home videos" to look right
- oh, and Windows please.. don't own a Mac

I'm planning on upgrading my PC soon anyway, so I just want to find the right software first, so that I know which CPU/GPU I have to have to get full hardware acceleration support.

From previous times I know Adobe Premiere had best support, and I've used it a bit while trial lasted, but it is an expensive tool geared for professionals...

Anyway, anything you've got to share that is more or less current info on the state of things in the 1080/60p editing, I'd be most grateful!

......Anyway, anything you've got to share that is more or less current info on the state of things in the 1080/60p editing, I'd be most grateful!

The four most commonly used, under $100, editors are Adobe Premier Elements, Sony Movie Studio Platinum, Corel Video Studio Pro and Cyberlink PowerDiretor. The three most common "pro", or over $100 systems, are Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier CC and Sony Vegas Pro. A relative newcomer is HitFilm that is an editor but includes a lot of visual effects features. Two more that have some fans are Pinnacle Studio and, apparently popular in Europe, Magix. More are coming to market aimed at tablets and smartphones.

I've tried to find actual sales figures and failed. My best guess is that Premier Elements is the most widely sold. It comes alone or in a kit with a version of Photoshop, has support for lots of languages and is retailed around the world. Amazon USA listed the combo kit as the Best Seller in "video editing" a few weeks ago. If their calculations added the combo kit sales to editor only sales, it might higher by a greater margin.

In the four that are under $100, all are well liked by users that have studied them enough to understand them. All can make fully featured videos using the cameras we consider to be usable by consumers. Current versions all have the necessary codecs and support for the AVCHD "native" files from the TM700. The few reviews I've read that try to compare them are flawed with inaccuracies. The programs are too complex for a single reviewer to gain a full working knowledge and their writing reflects that.

All video editor programs seem to have flaws. Their dedicated forums all have customers with "issues", especially with installation. Reviews on sites like Amazon's have detractors. I suspect 99 out of a 100 don't have trouble if they take the time to learn their chosen product.

In this group of NLEs, it appears the market has evolved to where the differences are incremental and far from significant. Once the final video is made, nobody will be able to identify what editor was used by watching the video. A user might invest the time to explore all the fee trials looking for the "best" or save time, pick one based on current sales promotion pricing and devote the time saved to learning the randomly chosen one.

In the over $100 group, Premier Pro is unique in that the licence is rented for $20 a month, or $50 a month if you want ALL of the other Adobe graphics programs. Final Cut is unique as it is Apple only.

Mac users can only pick from Final Cut or the two Adobe Premier products. PC users can't pick Final Cut.

Two others that seem to have features for broadcast and production shops are Edius and Avid Media Composer. They don't show up often in enthusiast's use, probably due to unneeded broadcast, multi-user features or price.

My personal favorite is Premier Elements and that is probably because I've spent the time learning it and can make it do everything I want or think I want.

Thanks to both, I'll try those <100$... I've noticed I can get Premiere Elements 13 on Amazon for 60$, hopefully offer will be there long enough to get my mind decided.. Others also go for 60-70-80$ on several stores I've checked, so all are there about. I'll make sure to post my thoughts once I try them with TM700 files

It's been almost 5 years since Panasonic came out with HDC-TM700 and other members of this cam family. And years later, I still have issues with editing native files.

Since I've been a bit out of the loop, is there anyone here that would like to share their opinions? Here's what I'm looking for:
- NLE tool capable of using raw MTS files from these cams (1080/60p/AVCHD)
- editing without recoding to the intermediary files
- having any kind of hardware acceleration
- having the ability to export to 1080/60p with as little loss of quality as possible
- as low price as possible not a pro ... I just want "home videos" to look right
- oh, and Windows please.. don't own a Mac

I have been editing 1080p60 from this cam on a 2008 PC running Sony Vegas - different versions. Vegas 7 and 8 were slow and buggy, Vegas 9 was faster but still buggy, starting from Vegas 10 I saw considerable improvement in speed and improvement in stability. Dual-core Phenom 2.2 GHz with an oldish Nvidia 9600GT can edit 1080p60 with almost real-time preview in quarter-resolution mode (960x540 @ 60p). Vegas can use Nvidia CUDA, version 13 can use Intel's video API whatever it is called. Not sure if non-pro versions can use GPU acceleration. But if you are going to buy a new machine then a new CPU might be faster than using GPU. On my old computer it takes about 8x of running time to generate HD video using 9600GT. On my new i5 3.4GHz it takes about 2x of running time to generate HD video using CPU, and the CPU runs cooler than the old Athlon!

Premiere - both Pro and Elements - is dog-slow on my computer with 1080p60 AVCHD. And it is very rigid in project settings. OTOH, they say that its UI is similar to the Final Cut's, which is one of the few de-facto NLEs that pros use. So, by using Premiere one can ostensibly prepare oneself to a smoother transition to the Final Cut if needed.

Ulead... I mean, Corel Videostudio Pro X7 is not extremely fast when editing, but quite fast when rendering yet produces very reasonable quality. Also, it can do very quick "no render" output of 1080p60 AVCHD if all you have is straight cuts and no effects. And it costs only $35. There is a newer version, but as I said if all you want is straight cut editing, then the X7 should work fine, also because adding effects in the Videostudio is very cumbersome affair.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuxZg

Anyway, anything you've got to share that is more or less current info on the state of things in the 1080/60p editing, I'd be most grateful!

Most of consumer-grade NLEs have trial versions - download and compare yourself.

Thanks to both, I'll try those <100$... I've noticed I can get Premiere Elements 13 on Amazon for 60$, hopefully offer will be there long enough to get my mind decided.. Others also go for 60-70-80$ on several stores I've checked, so all are there about. I'll make sure to post my thoughts once I try them with TM700 files

All of them have 30 day free trials if you go to the source website instead of a retailer.

When I decided to learn editing it was about the time the TM700 was new and I had a similar Panasonic, the SDT-750. I wasted a lot of time trying to find the best editor. I couldn't learn any of them well enough to make a smart choice. I am now convinced that competition has forced them all to include the important stuff. My current view is to pick any one of them and spend the time learning it and not waste time comparing them.

I ended up going with Premier Elements. It works. My favorite feature is the wealth of third party training material. Lynda.com has an extraordinarily efficient training course. there are many others. If you've never subscribed, you can have a month for free.

I got a new 4K capable camera and mistakenly thought Premier Elements did not have the capability for 4K. I bought Movie Studio Platinum and started learning it. It does have "CUDA" support, but on my computer, it didn't do anything noticeably faster or slower than Premier Elements which does not specify CUDA support.

I wouldn't call Premier Elements "rigid". It has dozens of project settings that can be set manually or automatically to match your AVCHD footage. Once set, you stick with it for the duration of the project. At output there are more dozens of presets with optional "advanced" adjustments that "render" or "transcode" to whatever media ones heart desires.

Again, I think it is more important to pick one, install a trial to be sure there is no hangup with your system, buy it and make the commitment to learning it thoroughly. There is no advantage to investing the time to learn more than one until you get a job in a production shop.

I wouldn't call Premier Elements "rigid". It has dozens of project settings that can be set manually or automatically to match your AVCHD footage. Once set, you stick with it for the duration of the project.

How is this not rigid? In Vegas I can change project settings at any time to any custom value I want, say in older versions that did not explicitly support 1080p60 I could set frame rate to 59.94 and scanning type to progressive and voila - I could preview, edit and render it. In Premiere if you have lower-bitrate AVCHD footage with 1440x1080 frame size you probably need to set HDV profile, because HDV is also 1440x1080. Because Premiere relies on specific format names it is always behind the recent developments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bsprague

Again, I think it is more important to pick one, install a trial to be sure there is no hangup with your system, buy it and make the commitment to learning it thoroughly. There is no advantage to investing the time to learn more than one until you get a job in a production shop.

I thought you once said that researching and learning new tools is fun for you ;-)

I've always been a careful type, so I'll certainly try the programs that seem interesting before I buy any of them. It's not like I'll spend a month with each, I'm expirienced enough with all kinds of software, and if software is intuitive, fast, stable, and has those few "must have" features that I need, than it's obvious right away.

I've tried Premiere Elements and it has tons of features, though not all of them work as good as advertised (like Story mode), but is also a pretty heavy piece of software, not far from full blown Premiere Pro (I've tried Pro several months ago).

Second one I've tried is Corel VideoStudio X8. Now I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, I can actually preview original MTS clips in it without (much) stuttering, enough to setup what I like in timeline, do few cuts and so on. My Core2 Duo CPU is way too slow to do a real-time preview of transitions and effects, but this was a step up from Premiere Elements. Also, easy enough to get a handle on, and makes a relatively quick encoding at the end. That's just a quick test, but I like it so far, enough so to come here to share the info.

I do have a question though. I assume Corel VideoStudio has ability to save the final rendering to 1920x1080/59.94fps video... I can't set that up, but hopefully that's just a limitation of trial (as I've already seen some fields greyed out and so on). With Pro available for 68-69$ and Ultimate for ~79$. Another interesting point is... X7 Ultimate is just 29$ on Amazon right now... could that be worth it for someone just doing some casual edits for vacations and so on?

Anyway, I'm gonna test Movie Studio from Sony and Cyperlink's PowerDirector. I've already used older trial of PowerDirector, and at a time it lacked the final rendering to 1080/60p so I haven't looked at it anymore, but it wasn't bad application, I assume they've added the support since those days, could be a good competitor.

> Second one I've tried is Corel VideoStudio X8 ... makes a relatively quick encoding at the end.

Yuuuup.

> I do have a question though. I assume Corel VideoStudio has ability to save
> the final rendering to 1920x1080/59.94fps video... I can't set that up,
> but hopefully that's just a limitation of trial (as I've already seen some
> fields greyed out and so on).

Dunno. Worked for me when I tested the X7. You must set parameters very closely to the original footage: AVC / TS / 28 Mbit/s / progressive / 59.94 fps / whatelse. But I haven't tried the X8.

> X7 Ultimate is just 29$ on Amazon right now... could that be worth it
> for someone just doing some casual edits for vacations and so on?

I do not really like the process of editing and adding filters, and timeline scrubbing is sluggish, but then again the only NLE I really adore is Vegas ;-) If you like the editing process in the VideoStudio then it should be enough.

> Anyway, I'm gonna test Movie Studio from Sony

Yeah! ;-)

> So prices are "there about", mostly in 65$-70$ range... except Movie Studio.
> It's so cheap I just have to see why.

They used to have a bunch of versions like just Movie Studio, then Movie Studio HD, then Movie Studio HD Platinum... But I guess they are all HD now. Check Sony's website for comparison.

....I thought you once said that researching and learning new tools is fun for you ;-)

I did say that. And, I have not changed my mind. My point of picking any one of the majors was directed at someone who is beginning to learn video editing. It is a unique process. Learning one well, without the distraction of learning others, will get one up and running more quickly. Adding arrows to the quiver later can be a lot of fun.

How is this not rigid? In Vegas I can change project settings at any time to any custom value I want, say in older versions that did not explicitly support 1080p60 I could set frame rate to 59.94 and scanning type to progressive and voila - I could preview, edit and render it. In Premiere if you have lower-bitrate AVCHD footage with 1440x1080 frame size you probably need to set HDV profile, because HDV is also 1440x1080. Because Premiere relies on specific format names it is always behind the recent developments.

I don't know anything about Premier. The few tutorials I've watched suggest it may be an entirely different coding project than Elements.

The last three versions don't rely on you to pick a "specific format name". You can force it to do that, there is a selection of named settings and it includes one suggesting it is for owners of "RED" cameras! What you do in current versions is to open a new project, add some media, choose a "primary" clip, slide it to the timeline and, "POP", the project preset matches the primary clip. The "named" setting have matching files buried in the folder structure. With a good set of "geek glasses" on, you can copy from one of them, change the settings and save them with names of your own choice.

You are right that, once the project is set, it rigidly maintains the "project settings". Nobody at Adobe's Elements coding shop (that may be in India!) tells me how it works. But, it seems to be that the project preset is (at least mostly) about the preview and editing process. If the preset is right, the preview window plays smoothly. As you add media pieces of different formats, it will create files (proxies?) in media files based on "scratch disk" location settings. I've not tried any HDV 1440x1080 files. I have mixed AVCHD 1080p60 with 4K at 30fps and mixed in some RAW photos without issue. I can't say for sure, but it seems the project preset stays focused on preview replay and may be ignored when you select output characteristics.

In my (so far) meager attempt at learning (Vegas based) Movie Studio Platinum there appears to be more flexibility in output choices from withing Premier Elements. Last week I did a 4K DIY Shower Valve Replacement tutorial for my condo association in 4K and output to a SD DVD that was quite crisp and clear on my neighbors Blu-Ray player. I think the Sony system requires the separate DVD Architect to do that.

There also seems to be a lot more variety in frame rate and bitrate output choices in Premier Elements than in Movie Studio. It appears that Premier Elements has you set your output choices, goes back to the source footage and ignores the "rigid"/fixed project preset while it transcodes/renders the variety of finished products. As you pick from the lists or supplied presets, there is almost always an "Advanced" button that allows you to change a bunch of stuff, including frame rates, frame dimensions, video bitrates and audio bitrates. So far, my limited experience with Movie Studio seems to suggest that choices at output are fewer.

No matter what I write, I stand by the conviction that all of the major low cost NLE's do a remarkable job of providing the choices we need to make videos for our TVs, YouTube or Vimeo. We just have to learn how to do it. From my perspective, the learning resources at Lynda.com for Premier Elements exceeds, by a considerable margin, what I've found for Movie Studio.

I don't fight with Ungerman. Instead, I have relied on him for a few years now. He has taught me some valuable stuff. He has made me find bits of knowledge on my own. He may be a little direct and to the point. He will remember everything you write. But fight with him? Never me.

Last week I did a 4K DIY Shower Valve Replacement tutorial for my condo association in 4K and output to a SD DVD that was quite crisp and clear on my neighbors Blu-Ray player.

Outputting to DVD-Video is still shrouded with uncertainty for me... 24p is simple - you render the video as 24p + "soft" 2:3 pulldown and a DVD player can either use true underlying 24p frames or read it as interlaced. But for 30p and 25p I do not see 2:2 pulldown option, so it seems that the only way is to output into 60i/50i and to hope that the player will figure out pulldown pattern all by itself.

This is one of the reasons why I feel that 24p is valuable: it is widely supported in American DVD players (in the aforementioned 24p + soft 2:3 pulldown form), it is supported in many European DVD players, it is supported in all European and American Blu-ray players, it is supported by YouTube and Vimeo. So you get a universal format that does not show interlacing artefacts nor is halved in resolution.

Yep, to author a DVD in Sony ecosystem you need DVD Architect, but on another hand if you render compliant MPG file then any DVD authoring tool should accept it. BTW, if you output native 24p from Vegas, DVD Architect will re-encode it into 24p with pulldown, but it does it rather quickly, so I guess it does not fully re-encode the frames.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bsprague

There also seems to be a lot more variety in frame rate and bitrate output choices in Premier Elements than in Movie Studio. It appears that Premier Elements has you set your output choices, goes back to the source footage and ignores the "rigid"/fixed project preset while it transcodes/renders the variety of finished products. As you pick from the lists or supplied presets, there is almost always an "Advanced" button that allows you to change a bunch of stuff, including frame rates, frame dimensions, video bitrates and audio bitrates. So far, my limited experience with Movie Studio seems to suggest that choices at output are fewer.

In Vegas output choices depend on particular renderer, but in general there are lots of options with many values can be simply typed in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bsprague

No matter what I write, I stand by the conviction that all of the major low cost NLE's do a remarkable job of providing the choices we need to make videos for our TVs, YouTube or Vimeo. We just have to learn how to do it.

Sure, ultimately it is not about 4K or a fancy NLE, it is about content. I hope you do not take this bickering about NLEs too seriously.

You've caught me again bleeding with ignorance. I don't understand anything about "pull down" and I have to put off trying to figure it out. The excuse is that I'm leaving in the morning for three weeks of clip gathering in interesting places. I won't be bringing my computer. Typing will be severely limited.

Hehe, I didn't mean it for real about fighting, good discussion with arguments is always a good way to learn, for all sides

I've tried the PowerDirector and Sony Movie Studio.

Unfortunately Movie Studio failed to start repeatedly, no matter what I did. Googling showed a lot of people having similar issues ranging from issues with ATI / nVidia drivers, other completely unrelated software installed on PC, and so on. I didn't like what I've seen so I gave up on it.
I did re-try Premiere Elements, and with some tweaks on my end, I managed to get the almost fluid previews like in Corel, making it a tie sort of.
I also read what you said about Corel and 1080/60p exports, which makes me feel better, but I've also noticed that it sometimes makes output that is not of very good quality.

In the end I've tried PowerDirector 13, and it checks everything I need. Working in it is pretty quick and straightforward, clip previews work fine, there are few tweaks even to lower quality of previews even lower for smoother playback. I also had no issue exporting project back to .m2ts file with more or less exact settings as TM700 source files (MTS, surround, 1080, 59,94fps, high image quality, ...). More so - even the resulting exported file played a bit smoother and better than TM700 original files ever did, and that's without tweaking any settings, just accepting what was there already. All in all I'm very satisfied with Cyberlink's software, and to top it off they offer 24 hour discount of 70% for PowerDirector 13 Ultimate + AudioDirector 5 + some additional effects and packs from Ultimate Suite netting 74,99$ for the whole deal. It's still 75$, quite a bit more than I planned to spend, but seeing as others are in the similar range when on discounts on Amazon and other online stores, I guess I've got nothing else to do.

I have to agree about one point - all of these will be more or less the same for the end user that hasn't done any "serious" video editing yet. I have used several tools in the past, from simple Windows Movie Maker, and VirtualDub or AviSynth, to Premiere Pro, and many more in between, so I'm not a complete newb, but I have found all of these to function pretty much the same. They all do simple edits with ultimate ease, and if I had a faster PC I'd be able to install, setup, open new project, throw in few clips, add transitions, cuts, music, and titles and such, and do it all in 30-40 minutes for a short clip of let's say 1-2 minutes made of 5-10 smaller clips.

I do have some complaints though:
- Premiere Elements (PE) is too heavy still, slowest of the bunch I think, at least on my PC
- PE has a nice "Story" mode, but it doesn't do a good work of clips, leaving too much video IMHO, doing weird cuts of shots of ceilings while few seconds further you can see people in a more stabile shot, and so on
- also PE doesn't allow you to do a quick edit in Story mode than "polish" it in Expert mode, weird, it would save some time I believe, and be a good feature for those that are "in between", neither good editors, and not complete newbs either
- PE is also a huge nag, videos made by Trial have huge watermark across the whole width of exported video, making it a terrible way to see the real final quality of final video...
- Corel burried itself a bit with a very limited trial, while it looks and functions fine, I couldn't test 1080/60p export, how it would look, and how fast it could be done, because - there's nothing above 720/60p; I'm not spending 70$ on a purchace of something I can't test properly
- Sony Movie Studio never started, what to say :-/
- PowerDirector didn't have any obvious issues, but it di crash once when I clicked on "Download Templates" (from DirectorZone), but only that one time, so let's say it's not a big deal, and it certaily hasn't lost ANY of my editing up to that point, which is kind of good to know; I did lack some features from others, or to say it correctly - I used it last so I've seen better/faster/nicer ways to do some minor things, but oh well, in retrospective others lacked stuff from PowerDirector as well.

I'll still look a bit around today to see if I can get any of these tools for a huge discount, but if they all end up in the 60-75$ range, I'll probably go with PowerDirector 13, as it exibited no deal-braking features or issues, and it allowed me to test all aspects of the app without interfering with greyed out fields, cut out features, huge watermarks and so on. And for 75$ I'll get an audio editor, not sure if I'll use it now, but there's time, once I learn a bit more. In the meantime those extra presets and effects could help

I hope this discussion helps someone else as well! Again - I agree - for most light edits and home videos all of these tools will do, and if mastered - they can all be used in almost professional projects as well, plenty of options and possibilities in all of them!

EDIT (2015-04-24):
Hey everyone! Just a quick info, in case it helps anyone else.
I did buy PowerDirector just a few minutes ago, and here are few things of interest if you want to save some $$
- install trial, and you'll be offered some nice discounts to Ultra, Ultimate and Suite
- I've picked Cyberlink PowerDirector 13 ULTIMATE + NewBlueFX Titler Pro v1 + NewBlueFX Video Essential 1 & 5 + CyberLink Wedding Pack & Holiday Pack 5 + AudioDirector 5 at 70% off for $74.99 (link, a long one, if it works for you... won't hurt if you try: www.cyberlink.com )
- had some trouble with too much VAT from EU, so I kind of faked Canadian address... my friends Google Maps + some "Kepard" VPN with free trial of 1 day did the trick
- also, you don't really need 1 year download ability, 30 days is fine, so that's almost another 10$ off
- and to top it off, there's a 20% off coupon "20POFF" so add that once you have everything in cart!

In total, I got it all for $59.99 ... Dollar is strong so it still cost me almost full 60€ as well, but oh well... they claim package usually costs 260$ + 25% VAT, so 325$ vs 60$.. can't say it was a bad deal

There's also a freeware deal on Cyperlink PhotoDirector 5 Special Edition (probably limited version of older software), which you can grab here: www.cyberlink.com

I'm still downloading it all, but with these combined, I should have a complete photo/video/audio editing solution which way surpasses what I currently need - and got it all for <60 Euros

I've had a TM700 for five years that's still going strong and works well for my needs. I'd like to get a second camera (as a volunteer videographer I sometimes am asked to record things that could benefit from a second camera). What's a good one to get? I'd want a camera whose output works well with TM700 video. It might be nice if the features of that camera were a good supplement to what the TM700 does. Of course cheaper is nice, too.

The market has changed a lot in five years. Any suggestions? What do others use?

I've had a TM700 for five years that's still going strong and works well for my needs. I'd like to get a second camera (as a volunteer videographer I sometimes am asked to record things that could benefit from a second camera). What's a good one to get? I'd want a camera whose output works well with TM700 video. It might be nice if the features of that camera were a good supplement to what the TM700 does. Of course cheaper is nice, too.

The market has changed a lot in five years. Any suggestions? What do others use?

Whichever camera you will be using to supplement the TM700, remember that the TM700 has four-blade iris, which makes for rhomboidal bokeh. If you mix this video with a camera that makes, say, six-bladed or 9-bladed bokeh, the image may look jarring. Or not. Depending on whether you care or even notice.